5th Week in Ordinary Time, Friday – 12th February 2021 — Gospel: Mark 7,31-37
Command to Creation
Jesus used his fingers, spittle and groaned “ephphatha” to cure a man who was handicapped both by deafness and an impediment in his speech. Jesus provided body talk for a man who might otherwise not know what Jesus was communicating. The crowd was too far away to perceive any of this, so his actions weren’t for their benefit. The man did not hear Jesus’s plea, “Be opened”. But the creation heard the command of the Creator, and the man was healed. Both his tongue and the ears functioned normally again. Jesus demonstrated that this miracle was an act of communion between the invalid, the creation and divine power. Pope Benedict XVI says, “Ephphatha – Be opened”, sums up Christ’s entire mission. He became man so that man, made inwardly deaf and dumb by sin, would become able to hear the voice of God, the voice of love speaking to his heart, and learn to speak in the language of love, to communicate with God and with others.”
